What Most Indians Are Really Saying About U.S. Anger

A Thursday post on CTOEdge, one of IT Business Edge's network sites, carried an eye-catching headline: "Indians Say U.S. Workers Are Right to Be Angry." The post, written by freelance writer Wayne Rash, was referring to the loss of U.S. jobs to Indians due to outsourcing. Eye-catching as it was, there was just one problem with the post: It was terribly misleading. The fact is, according to the poll Rash cited, a significant majority of Indians say no such thing.

When the Indian SMS-based social network GupShup polled Indian workers in that nation's technology hubs, it got quite a surprise. Tech workers in Bangalore, the biggest technology outsourcing hub in India said they felt that they understood the anger of American workers at losing their jobs to outsourcing. According to the company's Senior Director and Head of Marketing Vishal Nongbet, 45 percent of Indian workers polled understand the American sentiments, but nevertheless are proud of the jobs they do for American companies.

Well, wait a minute. That means the majority of tech workers in Bangalore don't understand the anger of American workers at losing their jobs to outsourcing. So why use the results of the poll to exaggerate the case and suggest that there's some sort of consensus among Indians that the anger of U.S. workers is understandable?

And it gets more perplexing. According to a report on the GupShup poll by expressbuzz.com, the Bangalore results didn't reflect the findings of the entire poll, which was conducted in four technology hubs in India. If you look at the results across all four cities, it turns out that only 38 percent of the respondents believe U.S. anger is justified. So a far more accurate headline for coverage of this story would be, "Nearly Two-thirds of Indians Say Anger of U.S. Workers Is Unfounded."

The expressbuzz report noted that even the 38 percent figure is considered high, given recent media coverage in India of changing U.S. immigration policies. But that certainly shouldn't give anyone the license to infer a generality of opinion.

All of this begs the question of what difference it makes whether Indians understand the anger of U.S. technology workers, or feel it's justified. It makes a difference because no contentious issue can be resolved without a mutual understanding of and appreciation for where the other guys are coming from. Indian workers need to understand the frustration of U.S. workers who lose their jobs to outsourcing, just as U.S. workers need to understand the reality of a global economy and why the outsourcing option is a business imperative.

Suggesting that the understanding of either side is more widespread than it really is serves no one's best interests. Let's not be afraid of the facts. Let's face them, and have the courage and determination to resolve the issues they define.

But these jobs are accurst! For Cthulhu's sake, let them go, and pray they'll never come back, for they are the harbingers of gangrenous economy.

Ever since they were sent on their way in the final decades of the last century, they are roaming the world in the eternal quest for the cheapest, crappiest places on Earth. The only way you can get IT jobs back is to become one.

It looks like even Indians are becoming too expensive (I've posted some links the other day). IT jobs are moving on, to Nigeria, Rwanda, North Korea (I kid you not), and so on.

The business imperative for theese jobs is "Thou shalt work for peanuts". Rant as you will, but that's the price of IT labour set by global market. Take it or leave it.

The head of cabinet for EU Information Society Commissioner was very blunt about about theese matters:

IOW: "We need 300.000 unemployed experts in the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector by 2015 to keep the salaries down, and our IT industry competitive."

And the sacred mission of Dan and people like him is to provide as may unemployed IT professionals as possible. You should have more regard for his efforts, since his mission is becoming increasingly demanding. He too must to work his way through the fierce headwinds of the global market. He wants us to speak good about the IT field, to inspire young people, our children even, and all that. Yet, as far as I'm concerned- when I learned about offshoring to North Korea, my opinion about IT career outlook changed from "pathetic" to "ridiculous". And something tells me I'm not the only one.